Clicker training and agility have a lot in common — they are both lots of fun –  and Click and Play Agility, by Angelica Steinker, brings the two worlds together. But even if you don’t do agility, the book has a lot of good ideas for ways to play with your dog.

Be warned, though, that it may get you interested in doing agility with your puppy or dog. That happened to Jean Donaldson, author of The Culture Clash and other books, who said, “This book made me want to immediately start doing agility! A fabulous weaving of learning theory into the latest agility teaching technology. The games and proofing exercises are truly first-rate.”

Angelica Steinker, author of Click and Play Agility, starts the book out by saying, “If I had the opportunity to live my life as a dog, I’d be a Border Collie.” Why? She explains that “Working and learning are addictive to me.” This thorough book shows that even if she is doomed to remain a human, she did bring boundless, Border Collie-like energy to the task of writing this book. (I’ve written several books myself, and I must be one of those breeds that takes a lot of sofa breaks!)

She describes numerous games, organized in what she calls the click and play pyramid: attention, consistency, attitude and motivation, self-control, and win-win. The back book cover describes this pyramid:

The Click and Play Pyramid is made up of five layers. The bottom layer, which everything else builds on, is attention. The dog gives the handler attention and vice versa. Consistency—the next layer—is critical to the dog’s learning process. Without consistency, the dog’s learning is slowed or stopped. Consistency leads to the next layer, which is attitude and motivation. Are both you and your dog having fun? Fun can be exciting, and excitement can lead to issues with self-control. Self-control is the fourth layer. Both dog and handler’s self-control are critical to an agility team’s success. The pinnacle of the pyramid is the concept of win/win training. Ideally, in all interactions both the handler and the dog win. Use this book and the Click and Play Pyramid concepts to help you and your dog become the best agility team you can be!

People who have actually used the book are very enthusiastic about how it brings clicker training and agility training together, in ways that are great fun. It even has some charts you can use for keeping track of your progress! To read reviews of the book at Dogwise, and to get it if you decide to, click on the image of the book cover… and I promise you won’t find yourself turned into a Border Collie!

(Umm, can I really promise that?)

(Here is a link to Click and Play Agility at Amazon, but when I was there, they didn’t carry the book… just had a used copy.)